


all my love forever

by hugducks



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Immortal Husbands, Internal Thoughts, M/M, not quite fluff but just them loving each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25351705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hugducks/pseuds/hugducks
Summary: They finally got to sleep in a bed. Just the two of them, before yet another job. Death awaits them, and they know it.Nicolò fuckinghatesdying.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 17
Kudos: 255





	all my love forever

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [hugducks](https://hugducks.tumblr.com/) on tumblr :)

They finally got to sleep in a bed. 

Not a cot, not a blanket, but a bed. The two bare mattresses pushed together in their last safe house didn’t count, not when Andy and Booker would collapse on the second one after finishing their watch, jostling Yusuf and Nicolò from their feather-light slumber.

No, they finally had a bed with proper sheets and a room of their own, and they took advantage of the goddamn _sleep_. (Their other activities could be saved till later, when Nicolò could properly take his lover apart, when they could focus all their attention on the other and not have to worry about a knife in their backs. Yusuf was someone to be savored, Nico had long since declared, not rushed out of a misguided haze of fear.)

They sleep, Yusuf wrapping his arms around his lover like he’s the only thing anchoring him to the living world, and maybe he is. 

They never know what the day will hold for them, only that there will be another to follow. So they sleep, tucked into one another, carving out their little pocket of peace, and dare the world to try to disturb them. 

No one makes that mistake.

\- - -

Nico fucking _hates_ being the diversion.

They pulled sticks for it, the four of them. Usually it depends on the mission; Nicolò is the best sniper, Andy the best in direct combat. Booker has a way with explosives, and if hostages are involved, Yusuf is the best to send forward. 

This mission was simpler – they were to be the angels Death used to cement his place on earth. And a diversion, a sacrificial lamb that couldn’t quite die, was the only skill they required.

Nicolò hates dying, yes, but it’s always worse when it’s Yusuf. He’s used to the pain, used to bearing the burden that immortality lays on him. But with Yusuf, it’s not physical. With Yusuf, the sight of that body cleaves into his very soul. He’s not afraid of death, permanent death. Not for himself. 

But Nicolò doesn’t know how he can be expected to go on if his very heart ceases to take another breath. And as the fool refuses to let him go in alone, he has to watch, has to hear, every. Single. Time. 

It’s almost a blessing when he goes first, a single bullet severing his spine. A selfish blessing, but a blessing nonetheless. He almost cries as the darkness is stolen away from him, knowing what will greet him. He’s no longer the fool who would pray for Andy (and Booker, now, though it used to be Quynh) to leap in; he’s lived too long to waste his words to God.

There’s a shot, and then another, and Nicolò can’t tell if that guttural scream, plagued with a pain only centuries past can cultivate, has ripped from his throat or his lover’s. The last thing he sees before his body is riddled with bullets of his own is Yusuf, bloody caverns gaping where his eyes should’ve been.

The burning starts as his vision begins to fade away, and he knows it’s going to be a hell of a ride on their way out.

\- - -

_There’s a man in his memories. There’s a man._

_He’s always there; if not the focus of the memory, he lingers at the edges. His smile lights up the room, fingers tangling with his own. His laugh curls around the corners of his heart, lips chasing away the darkness that threatens to overwhelm him._

_He doesn’t know his own name. But he knows this man, knows he’s safe. This man must be the safest person in his world._

Yusuf heaves as his eyes fly open, blood and bullets splattering on the ground as a comforting hand rubs his back. He blinks, adjusting to the light, already reaching out for the person he knows is there. 

“You scared me there,” Nicolò whispers in Italian, words caressing his cheek like a warm breeze on a cold day. 

Yusuf gropes around his head, feeling for bloody marks to confirm his suspicions. “Darling, you forgot half my brain,” he jokes, gently running his clean thumb over the fading cuts on Nicolò’s face. “At least I didn’t have to regrow a heart and two kidneys like _someone_ –”

Nicolò huffs, but brings his own hand up, entwining his fingers with his lover’s. “They gassed us,” he says eventually, pulling Yusuf up. He knows he doesn’t have to say it, knows Yusuf has had just as much experience as him, but there’s some part of him that needs his lover to drawl back the obvious in his lightly accented Italian. He treats every word like it’s a prayer to be revered, letting the sentences dance through his lips in a way Nicolò hasn’t ever heard replicated in his millenia of living.

Sure, the centuries had whittled away at their tongues, granting them the ability to slip in and out of accents like they were jackets to be thrown on and off, but where Andy and Booker chose to take advantage of the camouflage, Nicolò and Yusuf can’t bring themselves to do the same.

Nicolò thinks that losing their last ties to his origins would mean losing the fullness of what Yusuf means to him. He considers it, again, as he hands his lover a bloody rifle. There’s a twinkle in Yusuf’s eye that has him throwing his head back in laughter, and Nicolò lets the sight throw him as far into the present as it can.

There are many more deaths on their way out, but none belong to them. They tumble into the safehouse together, gasping in breaths as they jam the door, tossing their weapons aside. They’re far too tired to make their way to the shower, so they compromise, grabbing wet cloths to help each other wipe just enough blood off their bodies. 

Yusuf tugs Nicolò down into bed, wrapping his arms around his lover’s waist as he burrows his face into the other man’s neck. Nicolò laughs, twisting around to plant a soft kiss on Yusuf’s forehead, before turning back around.

“Corsica or Nepal?” Yusuf whispers into the untamed mane of hair before him. The words spill out in a language that isn’t quite Italian, isn’t quite French, but is utterly Nicolò.

Nicolò smiles into the darkness, entwining his fingers with the ones resting on his chest. “Corsica,” he says finally, voice hoarse. “It’s warmer right now, darling.” 

Yusuf’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he recognizes his native Arabic, a dialect long lost to time. “Corsica it is.”

He loses himself in Nicolò – Nicky, now, he supposes, but Nicolò will always be _his_ – and counts the days until their next proper bed.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the love letters between Gilbert Bradley and Gordon Bowsher during WWII.
> 
> Y'all. I fuckin loved The Old Guard. 
> 
> Gimme those hardened immortals and a story of loss and renewal. Gimme a happy couple who've come to peace with their existence, and are hopeless romantics throughout the centuries. (Gimme historical gays who just _are_ ). 
> 
> Yusuf's memory in the middle is based off a headcanon that when they get shot in the head, it takes a bit for the memories to grow back as well, given that a memory is basically electrical signals stored in ur brain. One thing I would've liked to know was how the whole organ regrowth worked n shit. Like, it was assumed that Merrick harvested some organs from Joe and Nicky, and it took a bit for them to come back to life thanks to that, but what would happen if an arm was cut off? A head? 
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated :) Check me out at [hugducks](https://hugducks.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


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